Your Drum Resource

Crossing Boundaries: Music as an Interdisciplinary Art Form

Music is ubiquitous and universal to our lives. But most often live music is still confined to the clubs and concert halls. In the past 15 or so years, I have been making a conscious effort to move out into different spaces and make what I do available to more and different people. Besides the usual performance spaces, I’ve played at stores, churches, conventions, libraries, schools, community centers, sculpture gardens, a wine cellar, and just about any place where I can interact with people.

Recently, I’ve been making an effort to perform more at museums, art galleries, and similar spaces. Along with this, I’ve been actively working with artists in other disciplines, like dancers, poets, painters, writers, etc. I really feel that percussion, perhaps more than any other instruments, lends itself well to merging with other art forms.

The minstrel in the art gallery, with typewriter…

Photo by Design 709

Gone are the days when you could make a living playing in clubs 6 nights a week. To survive as a musician today, you need to think outside of the concert hall/club box. You also need to look for new and exciting ways to find and interact with an audience. I find it much more interesting and challenging to perform in a non-traditional space.

Musician as story teller…

Take a chance. Step out into a new performance territory. Shake up your comfort zone. You’ll be glad you did.~ MB